Honour in Combat, Mk IIa

[flamingknives]

Carrying on from the last one

As otherwise the forum will explode.

Or somefink.

In a hit and run style, it's worth noting that the 1977 amendment of the Geneva Convention can be found easily enough via the use of Google

Here, in case you were wondering

The section in question is Part IV, Article 13

It's equally worth noting that the text of points 4 and 5, quoted in Krautman's post, does not appear in any form in the document.

[JonS]

Krautmann:

Why were these cities defended? I'd guess the Flak guns in German cities were only there because the cities were bombed first.

The bombers over German cities were 'only' there because ______________? (insert answer)

Which came first - the chicken or the egg?

[flamingknives]

Now, I always thought that population centres were liable to attack unless declared open and cleared of all military prescence.

The Hague Convention (Section II, Chapter I, Articles 25 to 27) is a bit vague on the subject, so does anyone know where I might have got that from?

[Edit: That's the Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907.

From the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) website ( www.icrc.org )]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Krautman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Krautman:

[qb] [snips] Yes, but "undefended" in this context of 1907 means "no armed ground forces, which could counterattack our own forces any moment, are located there". Can you associate FlaK batteries in a city in central Germany, which are entirely defensive in nature, with this "armed and potentially offensive ground forces" category? I admit it is difficult to decide though.

Hard to see what the difficulty is. You appear to be arguing that a place can be considered undefended because the only defences it has are, ummmm, defensive in nature.

What grass mod are you smoking?

</font>

[Tagwyn]

Interesting thread. John Kettler: Why do you refer to the Punic Wars as an example of negotiation, etc. Rome knew how to fight a war. Carthage must be destroyed. And, it was, not only destroyed, but salt was sown in the grounds in and around that despicable place. Tag

[Andreas]

The salting is disputed, and in any case, the Romans rebuilt a new city pretty much on the same spot, after they had made their point (which roughly was: "We are really powerful, don't mess with us, or be prepared to suffer the consequences.")

http://www.crystalinks.com/carthage.html

But negotiation? :confused:

All the best

Andreas

[The_Enigma]

I have saw some intresting points which have intregied me.

Its been stated above that noone was done for the bombing of cites etc other then one german luftwaffe officer who was hung in the balkens ... but at the same time was done for other crimes.

I ask this following question not to be a smartass but out of intrest, what was Goring sentanced for exacttly since he was the head of the luftwaffe?

As for the Dresden subject, wasnt the city taken out as it was a major supply base and commuications centre for the defence of the eastern front, thus the attack aimed at the city as a whole was to supress the above and make life that little bit easier on Ivan?

Thus making the city a legimate target, defences or no defences.

What grass mod are you smoking?

just have to add, i like that line.

[ March 13, 2006, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: the_enigma ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Krautman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John D Salt:

Hard to see what the difficulty is. You appear to be arguing that a place can be considered undefended because the only defences it has are, ummmm, defensive in nature.

What grass mod are you smoking?

Cute. Again for you:

</font>

[John Kettler]

JonS,

Since this isn't the Peng Thread, by your own admission you have just admitted to name calling,

a prohibited act under the Terms of Use for this Forum.

As for my being a shill, that connotes a decision to knowingly portray that which is false in order to con or gull one or more persons, whereas I have and have had no such intention. In legal terms, there is no mens rea. Rather, I'm looking for the truth, however unpleasant and nonPC it may turn out to be, and to which end I'm prepared to relentlessly follow the evidence, even if that means departing from the prescribed canons which have become a poor substitute for actually seriously looking into things.

76mm,

If you know the Punic Wars, you know that there was an ebb and flow over time, with both sides

gaining and yielding advantages in talks, ceding colonies and the like. At one point, the Carthaginians, aided by a storm, essentially wiped out a Roman fleet, forcing a crash naval program

which was the ancient equivalent of Henry Kaiser's yard for Liberty ships, using a Carthaginian quinquereme which washed ashore as a model. I think the real reason that Carthage was ultimately laid waste (the salt sowing story being something a teacher in the 1800s came up with) was that in the Roman Senate one Marcius Porcius "Piggy" Cato

ended every single speech of his many speeches with a thundering "Carthago delenda est!" ("Carthage must be destroyed!) Over time, he basically reprogrammed the Senate to his uncompromising, zero negotiation views. The forced disarmament, followed by Roman treaty repudiation and invasion, heroic Carthagininan crash rearmament and resistance, ultimately futile

, were but the final stages in a long-running series of conflicts, which is why they were called the Punic Wars. There were three, running from

264-146 B.C. in toto, obviously with gaps between them. Details here, with M. Porcius Cato link immediately after that (two parts, with link to part 2 at bottom of part 1). For the record, it wasn't just the Carthaginians who gave hostages.

Suggest you read up on the Roman general Regulus, from the First Punic War.

http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/people/a/catotheelder.htm

Given that I've now driven a Mack truck squarely through your argument, you might want to think twice in the future about pointing the accusatory finger at me as a default setting. Most of my posts are made in my insomniac wee hours, times in which memory isn't always the best and in which I'm least disposed and able to go site hunting. Even so, I note that many here won't yield an inch in an argument with me, no matter how solid the evidence against them, but get all huffy when I don't immediately go belly up in the face of theirs. Seems to me there's a big difference between having a reasoned discussion and encountering sheer intransigence.

Regards,

John Kettler

P.S.

For an example of what I'm capable of coming up with when awake and firing on most cylinders, please see my contributions in the 21 PD Werfers thread.

[ March 13, 2006, 05:10 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Wicky]

Gun emplacements and the shattered remnants of a tank seemed apparent to this writer, a former military analyst. One of the vehicles looked very much like a World War II German Panzer I, right down to its peculiar track work. Others seen in the vicinity looked like a World War I rhomboid tank and a U.S. M-48 of 1960s vintage. Whatever these things were, it seems that in later frames they received the full NASA disinformation treatment in which they were made to disappear as apparent alien artifacts.

John did you write this piece about tanks on Mars?

As for my being a shill, that connotes a decision to knowingly portray that which is false in order to con or gull one or more persons, whereas I have and have had no such intention

[Grimly Fiendish]

In the previous thread, I just noticed the following statement made, I believe, by John D Salt.

"A classic example is Herr Doktor Goebbels' assertion that it was the British who first invented the concentration camp in the Boer War; not true, but so widely repeated by now that it may as well be."

If this is false, then why? And what definition of a concentration camp are we using? To me, a concentration camp is a place to concentrate civilian enemies, not POWs, and the British apparently invented the term, in addition to using barbed wire for the purpose.

[JonS]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

As for my being a shill, that connotes a decision to knowingly portray that which is false in order to con or gull one or more persons, whereas I have and have had no such intention.

I think Stalin used the term 'useful idiots' to describe unwitting shills.

Rather, I'm looking for the truth, however unpleasant and nonPC it may turn out to be, and to which end I'm prepared to relentlessly follow the evidence, even if that means departing from the prescribed canons which have become a poor substitute for actually seriously looking into things.

See, that's the thing, I just don't think you are 'looking for the truth'. If you were you'd have bothered to research all the mundane little things that you get wrong in each and every X-Files post. You come across as not having a clue - or even the slightest interest in finding out about - what goes on in the real world that the rest of us inhabit. Yet you breathlessly parrot all the loopiest nuttery that you can dredge up, treating it as True Facts, when it is anything but.

You seem like a nice guy, and it's not your sincerity I question. I just wish you'd get a handle on all the fruit-loopery.

Regards

JonS

[76mm]

John Kettler:

many here won't yield an inch in an argument with me, no matter how solid the evidence against them

If this is true, I suspect the reason is that your definition of solid evidence is somewhat different from that of many people.

Given that I've now driven a Mack truck squarely through your argument, you might want to think twice in the future about pointing the accusatory finger at me as a default setting.

Um, I don't see how you've even addressed my point, much less "driven a Mack truck" squarely through it. The fact is that the Punic Wars were incredibly brutal and not marked by the diplomatic niceties that you are professing admiration for--in fact, during the Second Punic War there was virtually no diplomatic action at all (at least between Carthage and Rome), and throughout all of the wars both sides only stuck to the "treaties" as long as it was expedient to do so, before reneging. Moreover, regardless of any diplomatic activity, I find it hard to hold up warfare of this period--involving the wholesale slaughter of entire cities--as some kind of model for how wars should be conducted in a "civilized" fashion. So I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

And I'm not sure why you think that I point an accusatory finger at you "as a defualt setting". I've never posted any responses to you until now, when I detected factual errors in something I actually know about, and decided to point them out.

[Grimly Fiendish]

I have to make some long-witheld comments regarding the above discussion.

I see two potential uses for Hitler. One is to demonize him (to separate him from the rest of humanity as an example of inhuman evil), the other is to apologize for him (to blame his lesser actions on everyone else and deny the worst of the greater ones). Neither is honest.

The usefulness of apology is clear: it allows sympathetic alignment with fascism. A politician could deny the Holocaust, excuse the destruction of Germany, and propose "reforms" that bring back national militariam, and everyone would feel better. A historian could ride the good feeling to popularity.

The usefulness of demonization is clear: a politician could blame the Holocaust on one man, deny that it could ever happen again, and propose "reforms" that would bring back concentration camps for certain classes of people, and everyone else would feel better. A historian could ride the gravy train to Oprah.

So neither one is any less a tool of antidemocracy than the other, and in fact they go hand in hand. Try to find a defense of an act of atrocity, criminality, or just plain stupidity that doesn't include the argument "those other guys are worse." In fact, you often see arguments that go like this: (a) We didn't do it. ( Everybody does it. Do I need to point out that those arguments contradict one another?

The publication of photos from Abu Ghraib ought to clarify once and for all that when soldiers are placed outside the usual battlefield context---but still in the context of a war--- they will often do things they shouldn't. It's also no surprise that when the trusted, "legitimate" sources don't tell the full truth, the only sources of certain information will be the dishonest, manipulative ones. It's easy to argue from an armchair using "known" facts, but the truth isn't always of good quality. Some sources are easier to mock than others, but some degree of discernment is necessary no matter what your source.

In the case of John Kettler's POW camps story, the suspicious sources are antisemites and white racist militias and their spokesmen and sympathizers. But I find it hard to believe that there isn't SOME truth to the story presented here: http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/us_war_crimes/Eisenhowers_death_camps.htm.

Despite its source and form, some of it HAS to be true (the French whacked German prisoners in the head? Sacre bleu!), even if its most sensational claims are, er, probably not. (Note the breathless comparison of a baseless "1.7 million dead" to the Holocaust itself, as though you really need to go that far just to point out the injustice of being mean to POWs. The proper comparison, if any, would be to other POW camps or the witholding of supplies to former-enemy populations in general.)

But where else will you find anyone to tell you that life was rough for Germans in a postwar POW camp? Not a history textbook.

In this forum, I never see accusations of demonization, only accusations of apology. Why is that, and why do I see the accusation of "apologist" repeated so very often? Is this an accurate reflection of the distribution of these two groups in this forum? I don't think so.

[JonS]

Originally posted by the_enigma:

what was Goring sentanced for exacttly since he was the head of the luftwaffe?

Wiki to the rescue.

The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and six criminal organizations - the leadership of the Nazi party, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the High Command of the German army (OKW). The indictments were for:

1) participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace

2) planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crime against peace

3) war crimes

4) crimes against humanity

He was found guilty on all four.

[John Kettler]

JonS,

You can't have it both ways. You can't skewer me at every turn for factual errors, misstatements based on faulty memory and the like (BTW it's "default"), without also having to praise me when I do a good job, as in the aforementioned 21 PD thread. Yet how is it that all I ever get is the downside response? How is that fair?

You summarily label and dismiss virtually everything I say, persist in likely to get you banned ad hominem attacks and name calling, yet seem to be utterly unwilling to consider the very real possibility that maybe, just maybe, you don't know what you're talking about, having never bothered to leave your comfort zone to check.

As for the real world, I'm quite familiar with it.

I've seen performance capabilities of enemy weapons fudged to keep a bomber program sold (B-1). I've seen enemies created from friends who were no longer useful (Panama, Iraq). I've seen evidence of wholesale slaughter of innocents in Panama, hidden by removing staff

and covertly disposing of the bodies in a variety of ways (see "the Panama Deception," which I understand is available online). I've seen wars covertly financed, illegally waged, with most of those involved in organizing them never facing any reckoning, let alone trial (see "Coverup: Behind the Iran-contra Affair). I've seen the once aggressive American reporters turned into gutless corporate lapdogs and copyists for government press releases. I've seen whole technologies go black, having blundered across one such instance personally.

I've seen engineered strife unfold in my own city

(see Constantine's BLOOD, CARNAGE, AND THE AGENT PROVOCATEUR for info on the real basis of the Los Angles riots, cross confirmed to me by a friend who lived in South Central and was warned a priori not to be at Florence and Normandy the day the attack on Reginald Denny occurred there). I know who funded the rise of both the Soviet Union and Hitler (see Sutton's WALL STREET AND THE RISE OF HITLER. I have a friend who is one of the tens of thousands of survivors of U.S. atomic testing, testing which per a still being sat on Congressional report killed some 15,000 people. Three generations of her family suffer from nuclear related maladies. I have personally met a government mind control survivor/ex-sex slave (see O'Brian, TRANCEFORMATION), talked with a man (see Stich, UNSAFE SKIES) who urged the government to buy back Stingers from the muj, only to be ignored and driven from his government accident investigator job. I'm familiar with a whole series of covert chemical, biological and radiological tests on U.S. military and civilian personnel alike, some of which killed lots of people (see [url=http://www.gulfwarvets.com]www.gulfwarvets.com[/url and have met and talked with the founder Joyce Riley-Kleist, who herself got Gulf War Syndrome simply from treating evacuated U.S. troops; nearly killed her. I've seen a president (JFK) murdered live and despite overwhelming evidence of systematic thwarting of practically every protective measure and the coverup thereof, no one ever went to jail, let alone those who ordered the hit (see Schotz, HISTORY WILL NOT ABSOLVE US, the documentary series "The Men Who Killed Kennedy," Lifton, BEST EVIDENCE and go back and watch the footage of what happens when the motorcade is forming at Love Field; if you're paying attention, you'll see one of the pair Secret Service agents who ride on the rear bumper of the presidential limo, specifically to block rear/rear quarter shots, be ordered off the bumper--over his clear objections). I've met and talked with the former head of U.S. Spec Ops for Central and Latin America, who described how military friends of his who set up low altitude nav beacons for the Contra supply run were killed when they found and reported cocaine was being run on the very routes they created (see Gritz, A NATION BETRAYED). I could give dozens of further examples, but I'll close with one. Do you know what the official position of the Council on Foreign Relations was regarding the true reasons

why the U.S. entered the war and when? You would if you read the document taken from their own archives (see Sklar, Ed,. TRILATERALISM). Accuse me of "froot-loopery" if you will, but isn't that a bit iffy considering you so determinedly reside in Zwolfland?

Wicky,

I did indeed write that passage, but it comes across as being blatantly ridiculous without the photographs upon which my description is based. The NASA images as released to the public were deliberately sliced into vertical strips, which were staggered, then reassembled, a fact which was obvious once the mountain range in the background of some of the pictures was properly aligned. And it took further digging to find evidence of blatant digital alteration of even those released images.

I spent some four hours at the Pasadena conference, during which I saw overwhelming evidence, from a variety of disciplines, that NASA was cooking the imagery to hide all sorts of evidence of structured objects and in situ ancient technology. The "tanks" are only a few feet long, and the image processing used by the Enterprise Mission on the photos is the same as what NASA nominally employs, fractal recognition used to distinguish manmade objects (nonfractal) from natural ones (fractal). This'll show you some of what I saw (better versions available via fttp, I believe).

http://www.enterprisemission.com/pasadena2.html

Here's what many believe is the reason that NASA will never admit to evidence of ETs found during its explorations.

http://www.enterprisemission.com/brooking.html

We also have the testimony of a woman (Donna Tietz?) who worked in the Johnson Spaceflight Center in Houston and says that she personally observed UFOs caught in LANDSAT imagery being airbrushed out.

The Enterprise Mission site is positively awash in

case after case of NASA's being caught redhanded screwing with imagery, sitting on data, tweaking displays to shift the color palette, and the like.

Plenty of others, such as the one from Tom Van Flandern, former NASA planetary geologist, show the same thing.

76mm,

If you'd actually read the accounts, there was quite a bit of diplomatic activity during the Punic Wars, some nice and some downright awful. I mentioned the Punic Wars not because they were all sweetness and light (hardly!), but because I figured many of the readers would've heard of them, in an effort to show that even there, efforts were repeatedly made in an effort to stop or at least limit the ruinously expensive for both sides conflict. I provided several other examples

from ancient times as well, together with more recent ones. I do apologize for my "The Last Valley" error, but it was some 25 years ago that I saw the movie, and my memory was clearly faulty in the details. I fear also that you got an example in passing (Punic Wars) confused with the much later wars of the late 1600s-early 1800s as far as civility in war went, which I argued were likely a response to the unmitigated destruction of the Wars of the Reformation and CounterReformation.

Such practices as surrendering an invested walled city at the first breach (or even after a symbolic defiant volley) and yielding a fort when the magazine was cracked open (Ft. Sumter) were all solidly based on grim reality and a desire to prevent needless bloodshed on both sides. Similarly, letting the defeated march out with their colors, officers offer up their swords, etc., went a long way toward easing the hurt and the consequent need for avenging outraged honor (see British surrender at Yorktown), as contrasted with the ancient practices of subjugation (from the Latin sub jugum, literally "under the yoke," where the defeated had to bend low and pass under an ox yoke) and hamstringing, the latter semirevived in altered form in the French practice of lopping off the draw fingers of English longbowmen who were captured (believed to be the true origin of the "V" sign, as in thumbing English noses at the French by showing the gesturer was still archery capable).

My fundamental point, though, is simple. There are multiple weapon types now available which are quite capable of utterly destroying humankind on this planet. Unbridled warfare is thus tantamount

to species destruction, therefore by definition insane.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ March 14, 2006, 11:00 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

Dave Stockhoff,

Interesting argument, but the link comes back Error 404, at least from my rig. Also, even though I got trashed for it, I previously pointed out that investigative reporter Mae Brussell subscribed to some 150 periodicals, from all over the world, and of every stripe and persuasion. By doing so, she unearthed all sorts of juicy, devastating stuff. Likewise, the real issues of Whitewater (NOT Clinton's sexual misdeeds) were systematically covered in the European press, while being all but ignored in the States. It's sad but true that you're not going to get the truth about the misdeeds of the vested interests

from themselves, which is why I went far afield in search of the unpleasant truth.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Krautman]

[ March 14, 2006, 03:18 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[Krautman]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

It's equally worth noting that the text of points 4 and 5, quoted in Krautman's post, does not appear in any form in the document.

How good is your German? My link was from the official Confoederatio Helvetica site in Switzerland. I doubt there is a site more reliable on this very question. There were two amendments in 1977, iirc. You might have read the wrong one. Link

John D Salt, I don't perceive your argumentation to be much better. I said it is DIFFICULT to decide, not that towns with Flak were definitely undefended. You read my posts only to find something you might use to attack me. The question is not Dresden or Weimar, I don't see an inconsistency there. Andreas brought up Dresden, I picked his example. Most of urban Germany looked this way in 1945. A Flak battery in any German city in 1942 is there because the bombers came first. They could've left the civilian populace out of the air war entirely (which McNamara thought they probably should have). No egg, no chicken. If your main motivation is personal offense and not discussion, go ahead. But had you read my posts you had noticed that I am not the only one clueless in history and laws of war, you yourself didn't know area bombardments were illegal. (Check the link above).

As for my being Irvingesque, note that my original point was that area bombardments, disagreeing with Andreas, were a war crime. I never said they were even remotely on the same level as the Holocaust, as Irving did.

If you wish to discuss, then you should look at Andreas. He shares your opinion, but instead of just calling me a nazi muddlehead uses actual arguments: As soon as you enter an air war, Flak guns mean a threat to your forces, therefore the respective city is defended and can be attacked. That is a good point and the exact reason why I consider it difficult to decide whether a town far away from the front is defended in the sense of Haag or not. Which you did not understand.

BTW: In 1940, the Germans threw incendiary bombs on London. Which i consider a war crime too. The question is not who is the perpetrator. But why am I argueing with someone who takes pleasure in calling others Nazis?

[ March 14, 2006, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Krautman:

John D Salt, the question is not Dresden or Weimar. Most of urban Germany looked this way in 1945. A Flak battery in any German city in 1942 is there because the bombers came first. They could've left the civilian populace out of the air war entirely (which McNamara thought they probably should have). No egg, no chicken.

But the civilian populace was not out of it - the German government asked it to produce weapons. And they were producing weapons to help Germany win the war. You can not have it both ways - in a modern industrial war the civilian producing weapons is as much a combattant as the soldier using them. The egg was that the German government used factories in cities, crewed by civilian workers, to produce the weapons with which it prosecuted the war.

Should the RAF not have bombed Kassel, where in the downtown residential areas (250m from Am Stern, where today the university I went to is) Tiger I tanks were produced? Where in Bettenhausen Fieseler (later the AEG works) produced planes and later V-1? Where Wegmann im Loch produced and repaired tanks and halftracks right next to other residential areas? Where significant military installations were along the Kohlenstrasse, close to Wehlheiden?

I have seen this argument before, and it holds absolutely no water, and MacNamara is an idiot, in my view, if that is what he really thinks. If the civilian population produces weapons to put into the hands of soldiers fighting on the front, in factories that are interspersed with their settlements, they are a legitimate target in the WW2 context, and it is the responsibility of their government to figure out what to do about it, not of the enemy governments to consider losing the war for fear of hurting Germany's civilian population.

The only way the destruction of German cities could have been avoided was for Germany to seek peace in early 1943. Given that the leadership pretty much knew that it was game over after September 1942, that would have been the logical thing to do.

One should also not forget that in the end the air war over Germany was a significant contribution to Germany losing the war. The amount of production that had to be diverted by the Germans to feed it crippled the Luftwaffe and significantly reduced German artillery and anti-tank power as well as fuel supply on all fronts. The German government could at any point in time have stopped the attacks, by simply surrendering. That it did not, but instead chose to fight into the Götterdämmerung is not something the Allies can be blamed for. The guilt for the destruction of German cities, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Allied bombardment is resting squarely with the German government and military leadership who did not make peace when they could have, and should have.

All the best

Andreas

[Krautman]

Andreas, attacking arms industry is not what I objected to. As far as I know, the air war proved decisively when they started concentrating on the industry (esp. fuel), which they should've done before. No need to burn my Grandma's house on the outskirts of Koblenz (away from the garrison).

I will agree though that if you want to win a war, it is effective to fight the enemy country's war effort, including the civilian populace. But that is, in my legally unimportant opinion, a war crime.

Greetings

Krautman

[Krautman]

About McNamara, he felt uneasy about their deliberate attempts to kill as many civilians as possible. It is not that he considered area bombings ineffective or entirely wrong for winning the war.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Krautman:

Andreas, attacking arms industry is not what I objected to. As far as I know, the air war proved decisively when they started concentrating on the industry (esp. fuel), which they should've done before. No need to burn my Grandma's house on the outskirts of Koblenz (away from the garrison).

The effects I noted above had nothing to do with an attack on anything specific, they were just the result of the air war. Diversion of gun production to AAA, sole focus on producing defensive fighters instead of offensive planes, and heavy loss of pilots were these effects. What was needed for the campaign to have this effect however was an objective whose destruction Germany could not accept. That rules out dropping leaflets. As 1943 showed, day attacks were not feasible without fighter cover. So the only way to attain the objective were the less precise night attacks flown by the RAF. The air war over Germany was a brutal battle of attrition in which in the end the allies prevailed after very heavy losses.

I will agree though that if you want to win a war, it is effective to fight the enemy country's war effort, including the civilian populace. But that is, in my legally unimportant opinion, a war crime.

The term 'war crime' has a specific meaning (see below). In my opinion it is best not to use it too loosely, because like many things it will loose its meaning in the process. A bit like calling politicians who do something one does not agree with 'fascists'. I think if you said something like 'morally questionable/reprehensible; not fair play; just not on; etc., all of which are perfectly valid opinions, you would get a much better reception by other posters, since then you would not be claiming that aerial bombardment was something that it demonstrably was not.

From the online Cambridge Dictionary:

"war crime: a crime committed during a war which breaks the accepted international rules of war"

Aerial bombardment does not qualify. All sides engaged in it, and it was not outlawed by the then existing laws of war. That makes it different from unrestricted submarine warfare, which all sides engaged in, and which was outlawed.

Alles Gute

Andreas

[Krautman]

Agreed. I see why you were reluctant to use the term 'war crime' in this context and distinguished moral and judicial judgment.

Greetings

Krautman

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Andreas:

But the civilian populace was not out of it - the German government asked it to produce weapons. And they were producing weapons to help Germany win the war. You can not have it both ways - in a modern industrial war the civilian producing weapons is as much a combattant as the soldier using them. The egg was that the German government used factories in cities, crewed by civilian workers, to produce the weapons with which it prosecuted the war.

What are the limits of this, though? Is, for instance, a tax payer a legitimate target if his pennies help his government to wage a war? If so, is targetting civilians condemnable at all?